Leonardo DiCaprio eyeing villain role in Tarantino’s “Django”

By Sean O’ConnellHollywoodnews.com: Quentin Tarantino continues to prepare his next picture, an homage to spaghetti Westerns that will extend the “Django” series with a film called “Django Unchained.” And while Will Smith’s name has been attached to the project in various rumors (most notably because QT set the film up at Sony), another major A-lister is being associated in stories this morning.

Leonardo DiCaprio now is “eyeing a role” as a villain in Tarantino’s flick, THR reports. The film, according to some who have read the script, does for slave owners in the post-Civil War era what “Inglourious Basterds” did to the Nazis. The character of Django is a former slave setting out on a quest to find his missing wife. DiCaprio would play a vicious slave owner who runs a despicable plantation and wins Django’s wife in a poker game.

THR says that while DiCaprio’s interest has been buzzed about, “momentum has built in recent days for him to pull the trigger.” The villain wouldn’t be on the screen until the film’s second half, when he would dominate the latter portion of the film.

As for Smith, THR says talks for the major movie star to play Django are “cooling down,” with Jamie Foxx and the great Idris Elba (“The Wire”) surfacing as possible replacements.

About Sean O'Connell

Sean O'Connell is a nationally recognized film critic. His reviews have been published in print ('The Washington Post,' 'USA Today') and online (AMC FilmCritic.com, MSN's Citysearch) since 1996. He's a weekly contributor to several national radio programs. He is a longstanding member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS), and the Southeastern Film Critics View all articles by Sean O'Connell Association (SEFCA).